A new article in The Nation says much the same thing that Lester Brown did to elephant, recently—that in order to keep the world running properly, we’ll actually have to invest in sustainable, renewable energy—making it the bargain of a century in 2008.

Excerpt: “There’s always a bull market somewhere,” goes the old Wall Street saw, and it’s a principle that Washington needs to keep firmly in mind as it contemplates its trillion-dollar financial bailout. Today, that bull market is in green investing, which includes everything from wind and solar power to forest conservation.

Since 2001, the wind industry has grown 339 percent; the solar industry has grown a whopping 579 percent; both are projected to continue their blockbuster double-digit annual growth into the foreseeable future. In contrast, the Dow Jones average has climbed just 2 percent during the same period, and is only barely hanging on at those levels because of the artificial boost produced by talk of the bailout.

Instead of shoveling good money after bad, Congress should put its money into developing this booming green economy even further.

Truly green companies aren’t just providing returns to investors. They’re also an employment engine that is offsetting the job losses related to the high price of oil and the housing collapse. Tens of thousands of people are today employed making wind turbines, installing solar panels and making American cars more efficient. But those jobs could be only a very small beginning compared to what is possible.

A recent report report by the Center for American Progress estimates that investing just $100 billion in the green economy (one-seventh the amount contemplated in the administration’s proposed Wall Street bailout) would create 2 million new jobs, with a significant percentage of those coming in the struggling manufacturing and construction sectors. In contrast, investing that much money in the financial services sector would generate just 1.1...for more.

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Absolutely fantastically written. Real props. Usually, I do not write on blog posts unless I feel a great desire to do so! I’ve worked in Morgan Stanley in my life and just wanted to supplement some information on investing . The biggest new craze now is Forex trading which I see a lot of my customers do. Playing Forex can appear alluring, but the majority of people who try it lose money. All you have to do is do a web search on the words “Forex” and “lose” to see this is the consensus. Forex is similar to what we call a “zero sum” game. You are making a bet with someone else about whether a currency will rise or fall. For every winner there has to be a loser. The net winnings of everyone combined equals zero. If you are smarter than the average player, you may make money. If you are dumber than the average player, you are likely to lose money. Most of the people making the “bets” in Forex are highly trained professionals at banks and other institutions. You are unlikely to beat them at this game. Actually Forex is not quite a zero sum game. It’s a slightly negative sum game as the Forex broker takes a small percentage each time in the spread. It’s a small amount but over a hundred trades, it ends up being a considerable amount of money. So the average player is likely to lose money, and remember the average player is a highly trained professional and probably smarter than you. There is a lot of luck in Forex, and if you play it, you will have some periods of time where you make money. This is usually because you are having a lucky streak, not because you have suddenly become an expert Forex player. However, most people are unwilling to admit their success is due to luck. They become convinced they have a system that works, and lose a lot of money trying to refine it. I would recommend not trying to do Forex at all, unless you are a trained professional. It’s like playing poker with people better than you, with the house constantly taking a small percentage from the pot. I, myself, prefer index funds, particularly the S&P 500 – just read the NOVA article by Delos Chang – there is a great deal of ideas there that you can wrap your head around.

Sorry for the huge comment but I have a lot to say . Firstly, fantastic original post; usually, I don’t comment on a blog unless there’s something that stands out to me to do so. A little bit of history I work in arbitrage in a boutique firm. Here is my story: When I first turned 21, I started trading from a few scraps of pages of the “Intelligent Investor.” Of course, like any kid, I started investing in online investopedia before that. I first tried my hand in investing in financial derivatives like futures/swaps etc. but lost a lot of money unfortunately. After that, I became more substantially more knowledgeable with my money – I read from an article that Delos Chang wrote about the psychology of investors and the Wall Street Journal daily and began investing my money into mutual index funds from the S&P 500. Of course, this was after the Internet Stock Bubble took place and all the drug scandals in Mexico (I had a lot of currency in pesos before they pegged it to the dollar). But in terms of the systemic risk, I wanted to diversify and make a modest return in the long run. I’d say that in terms of investment , you won’t get rich with the S&P 500 mutual index funds but you will at least hedge against some sure loss by day trading unless you’re an informational trader (which few of us are!). But I’m sure you can learn this from any finance class!